Epiphany
by zeldris
Summary: She was shy; he was blind. It was ironic that he would be the one guiding her to the light. gruvia. au.
1. meet ugly

"That's a nice _rack._ "

I heard several irrevocable _fuckboy_ snickers coming from behind me. The one who had spoken was dragging his thumb across the rack that contained spices, but his eyes were lingering on a different kind of rack, one I hoped to keep to myself.

Not in the mood to engage them in an argument I knew I wouldn't be able to win, I forced myself to stare at the little shakers of paprika I was instructed to bring home. Just this, and a few more things, and I'll be done, just a few more minutes…

"Can I help you grab anything? Maybe a drink later?" A different one inquired, slightly agitated at my willpower of steel not to run away or burst into tears. Anything anyone with such crippling social anxiety would've done in my situation.

I was so upset I had to stop my hand from shaking. Why wouldn't they just take a hint and go _away._ It was plain and clear I wasn't interested, all I wanted was some ingredients for the lasagna, _why_ my mother couldn't have done it herself when she knows how much I hate social situations continues to baffle me, but I have to press on, I have to, I _have to-_

"You got some nice legs there, what's your name?" The first one to have spoken asked.

My name lingered at the edge of my tongue, but I couldn't push it out. That was how it always was, no matter how badly I wanted to speak, to scream, to cry, I always just froze up, like a deer in headlights. _Why_ couldn't I have been born with my mother's god-like charisma? Or for god's sake – even my dad's barely audible sports lingo would've been better than this!

"You hear us ok? What's your name?" One of them annunciated clearly, like they thought I couldn't speak English.

I hurriedly glanced at the ground, searching my muddled brain for some sort of solution to my problem. Unfortunately, my frontal lobe was as good as slush in these kinds of situation. Everything went blank and the only thing my mind could register was pure, unadulterated _fear._

I might actually throw up. I felt so sick in that moment, my eyes almost started to water.

I grabbed a box of something, I didn't know what it was, I just grabbed it because I needed something to distract myself.

"Hey, come on, we're not asking that much." One of them pressed, and I felt his hand touch my shoulder. I wanted to rip it off, I wanted to straight-up kung-fu him over my shoulder and smack him down onto his back. Then his friends would go away, run away probably, and I'd never have to speak to them ever again.

Instead, I made an uncomfortable squeaking sound and dropped my pepper.

The guy whose hand was on my shoulder leant down and picked it up, managing to maintain contact with my shirt sleeve the entire time.

"You dropped this," he commented raspily, narrating like I hadn't noticed what had just happened.

"Ah-h." I nodded awkwardly and took it from him. He and his friends laughed at me and I felt an embarrassed blush rise to my cheeks.

I wanted to run so badly. Just kick out my ankles and _run,_ forget about the stupid ingredients. I'd tell my mom I got robbed by teens, or something.

"C'mon sweetheart," the guy with a steel-like grip on my shoulder whispered, far too close to even be in a league of comfort. "Why don't you come with us?"

Just when I felt the all-too-familiar bite of tears behind my closed eyes, I heard a deafening crash and my shoulder was released.

"-the _fuck_ was that for?"

"Jesus Christ!"

" _Dude_ what the fuck is wrong with you?"

I cracked an eye open, blinking away the thin veil of tears like they weren't even there in the first place.

A shopping cart was strewn across the aisle carelessly that wasn't there before. A man stood with his arms out, almost in mid-thrust, with an apologetic goofy smile on his face.

"-did I just hit someone? I am _so_ sorry." He apologized, one hand ducking over his pitch-black sunglasses. He was tall, much taller than me, and even loomed an inch or two over the guys who were harassing me. He had dark onyx hair, and a stocky build – he was intimidating enough to be a mobster, but he still had a dorky, wry smile knitted upon his lips.

The last thing I noticed was the fact that he was leaning on a thin, white cane.

No _way._

"You see, my eyes and I don't really get along too well," he explained, still enduring a light-hearted teasing tone to the way he talked. He waved a hand in front of his sunglasses, a jab at himself for his lack of sight. He was strange, that was for sure. I couldn't recall someone ever speaking like that – so comfortable, so _easy…_

"You literally just _shoved_ a shopping cart at us – how blind can you be?" One of the guys asked angrily, only realizing his trip up moments after speaking.

"Hm…one-hundred percent blind, I'm pretty sure that's the cap." He said jokingly, tapping his chin in mock thought. It was almost a performance for him, I was in complete awe of this man who had absolutely no idea who he was dealing with, yet he still charged forward like he were facing up against a two year old instead of five youth-induced young teens.

He was beyond brave – I had never seen anything like it.

"Look, just take your cart and _leave_ ," one of the boys said rudely, and I realized shortly after that he was the one who had his hand perched on my shoulder.

"Well," the man mused, standing confidently and comfortably – everything I couldn't do. "I know my eyesight isn't exactly reliable, but I _do_ believe I heard a lady over here."

I held my breath nervously. He had heard me? How embarrassing, I had done practically nothing to defend myself.

"It may be rude of me to ask," he began again, his face turning to me, and for a second, it felt like he was staring straight at me even though I knew that couldn't be possible. "But…may I hear your voice?"

And in that moment, I felt so much energy coursing through my veins – I was finally able to do something that I had never done before.

"Yes," I choked out, hopefully not sounding as strangled as I felt. "I'm here."

He smiled, so blindingly kind that I felt my heart skip a beat.

"Well that's good, it would've been fairly embarrassing if I had imagined it all," he joked. "and it makes it all the more easy for me to do _this._ "

In a flash of a second, his hands darted forward, caught the disheveled shopping cart, and shot it forward at them like they were a set of bowling pins.

A few of them yelped, one of them was actually hit. I'd never seen anyone run so fastin my entire life.

A few seconds after the event transpired, the man clapped his hands together, interrupting ot interlude of silence.

"I'm really very sorry that they were bothering you," he said.

"I-it's fine! Thank you! I mean." I stumbled, trying to assemble my words into the correct order. My mind was still frazzled from the group of boys and I felt my knees shake a little bit, and I was thankful that he couldn't see me, surely it'd be a mortifying sight.

"Quite alright," he said politely, tapping his cane against the floor softly. "What say I walk you to the check-out counter?"

I let out a tiny sigh of relief. It was weird – it was almost like he could sense my emotions. All I had been feeling was fear and uncertainty, and he wiped it all away just by offering me his arm.

"Th-thank you…" I shook, taking his arm eagerly and letting my body, for the first time since I had been forced to enter the store, completely relax.

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 **brilliant another au just what i needed hm**


	2. subway blues

**its updating day! idk what ill work on next, but ill get to it!**

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I followed him onto the subway, for some reason, he had decided to walk me home on his own terms.

"Oh!" He remarked, stopping suddenly and placing a finger on his forehead like he was trying to remember something he'd long forgotten. "Sorry, my name's Gray." He held his hand out to shake, his hand diagonal from where she was. A small miscalculation due to his lack of sight.

"…Juvia." She said softly. He appeared to have heard her quite well though, because he shook her hand kindly and walked towards the train.

"Pretty." He commented, effortlessly making me blush without even a second glance.

"Uh…wh-where's your stop?" I asked, hoping I wasn't inconveniencing him by being a pathetic antisocial shut-in.

"Camellia." He answered.

I let out a sigh of relief. Camellia was a stop after my own stop, Orchid. (evidently all of the stops were named after flowers) . So it wouldn't be that big of a deal after all.

The train was dull and lifeless, as you would expect from a town like this. Over time, Magnolia City began to degrade, less people came to live and visit and now it was almost a bit of a ghost town, in comparison to what it used to be, of course.

"What are you thinking?" He suddenly asked, sitting down on a silver waiting bench and looking in my general direction. The question was strange enough, like asking someone you'd just met, ' _what are you having for dinner?'_ but I took it with a grain of salt, I did owe him for what he did for me.

"I can't see you face, so I can't really tell," he said, in light of the fact that I had yet to answer him.

"W-well," I began, watching the timer for the next train tick closer and closer to zero. "I'm wondering if there will be any seats on the train, at least ones that aren't broken or messy. I hate standing on the train, so it's like rolling dice." _Damn it Juvia, you idiot, he's probably never seen a dice! Stupid, stupid, stupid!_

He smiled unexpectedly. "You're right about that, I've given up on sitting down. It makes it a little bit more difficult to find and unscathed seat when you can't see."

I smiled in relief back at him. He was so heart-breakingly easy to talk to, I didn't feel his judging gaze like I did with other people, it just felt…natural.

The train's echo interrupted my thought process. Gray stood up and tapped his cane on the ground once, almost double-checking to see if the ground was still there.

I wanted to ask if he needed any help getting on the train, but he seemed to have been here before and know what he was doing. I didn't want to come off as rude, and I especially didn't want him to hate me.

The train pulled to a stop and three people in total got out. I made sure that I walked loudly on my way to the car, so Gray wouldn't lose his way or anything. He smiled a bit, perhaps he realized what I was doing and walked onto the train like it was his born duty.

There was a single man in the car, sleeping atop three open chairs. The rest of the seats were either torn or had mysterious liquid or stains on them. I let out a whimper of sadness. I'd have to stand.

Over the course of the train's operation, the train had got more and more…shitty. At the beginning of its circuit, the train was shiny and new, with leather straps for people to hold on and fine smooth seats that weren't falling out of place. As time wore down on it, the leather straps faded and broke (I cried the day the last leather strap wore through, it had been my favorite) and the chairs got disgusting and old. The city neglected the train with a passion, claiming that it was desolate transit that hardly anyone used anymore, a waste of money. Unfortunately, I relied on the train to get me everywhere, so it was a constant gamble.

I especially hated standing. I for one, had horrible balance. Like…just awful. The second the train starts, I topple over like a house of cards and have to hold on for dear life to the stupid metal railings (which are pretty much popping out of there sockets) honestly, I'm surprised the train isn't extinct yet.

"What's wrong?" Gray asked, voice filled with concern. He must've heard my whimper, he wasn't even holding onto anything, he was just standing right in the center of the door, just far enough in the middle so that if anyone came in, they would skirt around him with ease.

"The seats. They're…" I began, trying to think of a word to describe them without sounding prissy.

"Shit." Gray finished for me eloquently.

"…More or less." I added in, so I didn't sound like an idiot who could never speak. My hand blindly grasped at one of the zip ties someone had conveniently locked onto the railing. It hurt like hell, especially when the train started to move, but I'd push my luck because I couldn't reach the actual railing above.

Gray was still standing, frozen in his position. You'd swear he was sleeping, just by the amount of tranquility he'd managed to sum up into one stance. I envied him.

"Gray," I began, as the train began to shut its doors, "are you going to…hold on?"

He laughed, like I'd told him a hilarious joke. "No, I don't need to anymore."

"What?" I choked out, letting the jealousy fall from my lips like diamonds. He didn't need to hold on? _How_? I'd surely be on the ground the second the stupid train even took off.

"You sound doubtful." He noticed, folding his arms like it was all in a days work. "Let me show you how it's done."

The second after he said those words, the train took off.

I, of course, caught off guard by Gray's wild statement, lost my grip on the cunning zip tie and flew backwards. With a clipped shriek, I landed dangerously close to the guy who was asleep.

Gray hardly moved. "What was that?"

"Me," I squeaked out. "I fell."

"You fell?" He asked, lips parted in absolute confusion. "How?"

"I have horrible balance?" I answered, crawling up to my knees and holding my hands out like I was on a surfboard and not a train. It really was ridiculously embarrassing. Good thing Gray can't see how stupid I probably look.

"Here," he offered my his hand, still granite-still in his position in front of the doors. I stared at him, starstruck by his amazing talent.

I took his hand and he tugged me upwards, surprising me with the strength of just one of his arms.

He was leanly muscled, I could even tell through the seams of his jacket. He was the kind of guy who probably did spend a decent amount of time working for it, and he was just lean enough to prove that he wasn't a steroid-pumped muscle-holic.

"U-uh." I mumbled. "Thank you."

"No problem. Do you…fall a lot?" He asked, a bemused smile crossing his lips.

 _Oh god, he thinks I'm a total idiot!_

"N-no. Well…yes." I answered, because a second after I said no I felt bad for lying to a blind person.

He laughed. Not in a mean way, not at all. It was a nice laugh that made me want to hear more, not cringe and run away.

"Just hang onto me then," he said so casually, I almost fainted. Hang onto… _him_?

Mean yea, he was pretty much a statue, even in the way the train lurched and groaned, he still stayed fairly still, miraculously. Do blind people have better balance?

"S-sure." I stuttered, unsure of where I should…grab him. My hand touched his arm experimentally. The train surged forward and my whole hand grabbed his arm in search of support. I was pretty much clambering onto him like he was the only life raft in the pacific ocean, mortifying me in the process. "Sorry!"

"It's ok, you're fine." He reassured me. I don't know why it was, but my entire body relaxed at his the sound of his voice. He was a voice masseuse. That was the only explanation.

The train stopped in front of Sylvia station. No one got on. Normally, I would've either fallen or got some serious zip tie burn on my hand if I wasn't leaning all of my weight into Gray. He was taking it quite nicely, widening his stance just a little bit so he could balance better with our combined weight. I was basically no help to him either, he was holding up both of us. I felt terrible for using a handicapped person as a crutch, but then again, he was just standing there happily.

"How old are you?" He asked suddenly. I suppose he didn't get a good gauge of my age by my voice.

"Eighteen." I answered. I was almost finished with my senior year in high school, just a little bit longer and I could go to college, my one and only dream – to get the hell out of Magnolia City.

"I'm nineteen." He said. I thought he'd be at least twenty. I wonder if he went to college? I was too nervous to ask, I might be invading his privacy…

If you live on Orchid, that means you went to Magnolia North, right?" He asked. I nodded. The I realized how stupid I was.

"Y-yes. You must have gone to East." I concluded.

"Yup. I'm took a year off to work at a teaching facility, and I'm thinking of getting my degree next year." He said conversationally, smiling like he was remembering something pleasant from that morning.

"What do you teach?" I asked, interested to see what he planned to do for a living.

"This year I mostly worked with other blind kids, you know. Tell 'em everything's gonna be alright, teach 'em Braille and stuff." He answered.

"That's…" _amazing_ , I wanted to say, but the word got trapped in my throat and I almost choked to death on it.

"You ok?" He asked worriedly.

"F-fine!" I coughed out. _God,_ I am such an embarrassing idiot I better he never, ever wants to see me ever again!

I unintentionally tightened my grip on his arm, lamenting about what a horrible, awful, annoying person I was.

"Ouch." He said sarcastically. I loosened my grip in horror.

"I was just thinking about…home." I lied, sort of. I didn't really want to go home, I only had a few of the groceries my mom told me to get. I got too nervous to finish them after Gray saved me.

"What's so bad about that?" He asked.

"Um…nothing. Well, I mean, homework." I said, for some reason unable to think of what to say around him.

It was weird, I felt the courage to speak when I was around him, but I always said the weirdest things. You give a little, you get a little, I guess.

"I hear you." He said. Then he cracked up a little bit. I guess he was a weirdo too. That's probably why I liked him so much. He was a hot weirdo. We don't get a lot of those.

We were getting close to my station. I began to panic. _Should I give him my phone number? I have no idea what to do in these situations?!_

"You smell good." He said, like he was just now noticing it. "And that's a compliment – I can smell chocolate chip cookies from like three miles away, it's _awesome_. But you smell really good."

My face lit aflame. How can he say stuff like that so casually? It would've taken three months of pent up bravery for me to even say 'hi' to some people, and he just goes up and says you _smell_ nice.

Who knows, maybe it's easier when you can't see the way everyone looks at you funny.

"Th-thanks." I acknowledged, burying the bottom half of my face in my hair. I probably looked like a puffy radish.

" _Orchid Station, now boarding._ " The scratchy telecom voice told me. I blinked.

"That's you, right?" He asked, loosening his arm so I could untangle myself from him.

"Y-yes. Right. Goodbye." I said quickly, detaching myself and fleeing the train.

The second my feet his the pavement of the station, I felt a flood of dread wash over me like a tidal wave and I whirled around to face him.

"I really really hope I can see you again sometime!" I shouted, without even thinking at him, still inside the train. He made a funny face, like ' _oh really?'_ and the train doors shut.

I stood there for ten seconds evaluating what I had just done.

 _Welp,_ I thought cynically, _congratulations, you're the stupidest person alive._

And then I walked home, with visions of the kind blind boy plaguing my mind.

I don't think I was ever going to get over him.

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